In the videoconferencing arts, it is common for a videoconference endpoint (i.e., a videoconferencing terminal located at a particular site) to provide identifying information to another endpoint or a multipoint control unit, bridge, or gateway with which it is engaged in a videoconference. This identifying information frequently includes either a geographic location or a person's name. In many cases, these identifiers may be displayed to a user at another endpoint of a video conference to identify the video images currently being displayed as coming from a particular location or a particular person.
A problem arises when the identifiers are in languages that do not use the Latin alphabet. Historically site names in the languages of so-called double byte character sets, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian, have not been permitted. For example, a videoconference endpoint located in China would not be allowed to have a Chinese language site name. Instead, such a system would have only an English or Pinyin system name. As is known, Pinyin is a method for phonetically writing traditional and simplified Chinese with characters from the Latin alphabet. When such a system establishes a videoconference with another endpoint, e.g., an endpoint located in the United States using English as its language, the two endpoints exchange their site names, and the site name of each endpoint is shown on the other endpoint's display in English. This behavior is neither desirable nor convenient if a conference user does not understand English.
This behavior has heretofore been tolerated because of various technical reasons including: (i) Lack of standardization for how names in the languages of double byte character sets be stored, i.e., in native (binary) format or American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) format; and (ii) lack of standardization for how the site name string should be sent to the remote end during caller ID exchange when the endpoints are using different language settings.
Therefore, what is needed in the art is a system and method for facilitating the storage and exchange of identifiers in non-Latin, double-byte character sets.